U.S. markets and public companies increasingly targeted by Russian hackers | Real Time Headlines

There have been many notorious insider trading cases on Wall Street, including Ivan Boesky in the 1980s, Martha Stewart in the early 2000s, and Mathew Martoma of SAC Capital Advisors in the 2010s. But one of the most damaging insider trading schemes in recent years couldn’t be linked to a U.S. trading floor or brokerage firm. Instead, it comes from Russia.

As detailed in CNBC’s new original podcast series “The crime of the Putin merchant,” Russian entrepreneur Vladislav Klyushin Fraud totaling more than $93 million Because his cybersecurity company, M-13, was a front for Russian hackers to steal profit reports from American companies before they were made public. The hackers then used these insights to trade, buying and selling shares of well-known American companies such as Tesla, Skechers, Snapchat and Roku.

Klyushin’s actions attracted the attention of the FBI and U.S. Attorney, who were eventually able to Arrest him in Switzerland When he was going on a ski trip. Klyushin was later sentenced to nine years in prison by the Justice Department for his role in the hacking and trading scheme (he was recently sentenced Freed in prisoner swap with Russia), threats from hackers and foreign actors to U.S. companies, investors, and markets are increasing.

Sandra Joyce, vice president of threat intelligence at Google Cloud, told CNBC Washington: “Right now, we are seeing a surge in ransomware and extortion incidents targeting U.S. companies, mainly from Russia, but also Eastern Europe. ” Correspondent Eamonn Javers. “So we do feel like this is a huge concern and certainly a national security issue.”

While reporting on the story, Javers received a tip that led him to a former senior member of Russia’s FSB intelligence agency whose job was to steal financial and economic information from the United States and the West.

The former spy, who now lives in the United States under a false identity, told Javers that during his career as an agent, his job was to recruit sources from the financial and banking sectors “to use them as assets of the Russian state.”

As the spy explained to Javers, Operation Klyushin was just one small part of Russia’s larger strategy to unconventionally respond to U.S. financial sanctions, authorized by Russian President Vladimir Putin to causing serious damage to Western economies.

“This is a war going on between Russia and the West,” the spy said. “Finance, banking and the financial sector itself is just one of the battlegrounds where this whole thing is happening.”